Authors
Yousin Park1, *, Iori Nakaoka2, Yunju Chen3
1Dept. of Business Administration, Prefectural University of Hiroshima,
1-1-71 Ujina-Higashi, Minami-ku, Hiroshima City, Hiroshima Pref., 734-8558,
Japan
2Dept. of Business Administration, National Institute of Technology, Ube
College, 2-14-1 Tokiwadai, Ube City, Yamaguchi Pref., 755-8555, Japan
3Faculty of Economics, Shiga University, 1-1-1, Banba, Hikone City, Shiga
Pref., 522-8522, Japan
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Corresponding Author
Yousin Park
Received 31 October 2018, Accepted 21 May 2020, Available Online 9 October
2020.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.2991/jrnal.k.200909.009
Keywords
Technological discontinuities; radical innovation; R&D strategy; automobile
companies; patent analysis
Abstract
This paper focuses on patterns of innovation and the R&D strategy of
automobile companies for technological changes. Tushman and Anderson (1986)
pointed out that there are two types of technological changes: incremental
technological change and radical technological change. In particular, radical
technological change may largely affect existing companies and new entrants
for gaining competitive advantage in the emerging market. To examine this
proposition, we use the patent information of existing automobile company
(Toyota) and new entrants (Tesla, BYD) to analyze their R&D strategies
on electric vehicle by social network analysis and cluster analysis. The
analyses in this paper include the following: (1) To capture the radical
and incremental technological changes from each company’s R&D projects,
and visualize these changes, (2) To examine the relationship between technological
discontinuities and the R&D strategies of automobile companies. We
conclude that patterns of corporate R&D strategy that cope with the
threat of radical technological changes differ from company in automobile
industry, and we suggest the reason that cause this difference.
Copyright
© 2020 The Authors. Published by ALife Robotics Corp. Ltd.
Open Access
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).